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I guess for someone, stealing is easier than working for it. And from kids nonetheless. Allow me to explain.

If you’ve browsed any of my previous posts here on GMG, you’ve probably come to know a few things about me. You probably know that I’m long winded (does that actually apply to writing?) and you’ve probably gotten to “know” my two young boys….and maybe you’ve learned that they love the ocean. More than loving it, they work hard at being budding little lobstermen, and they’re pretty passionate about it.

My boys, along with their three great friends…on our friends’ boat, go lobstering typically twice per week all summer long. With only ten traps, they certainly don’t do it to make money….they do it because they love it. And, they do it for Lobsterfest! Once each summer (maybe twice if we’re lucky)… we gather our families and some of our local friends, and we have a feast to end all feasts. More importantly, we have laugh after laugh, in one of the most picturesque towns I know. It is, without a doubt, one of our favorite evenings of the entire summer.

We check the tide chart….we check our busy summer schedules…and we pick a day. This summer…that day was Saturday.

The kids feel tremendous pride that their hard work supplies the Stars of the Show: The Rockport Harbor Lobsters! They feel tremendous pride that our guests….friends who have watched them grow, learn, laugh, and cry…gather to enjoy a quintessential summer evening and “oooh and ahhhh” over their bounty! They feel tremendous pride in being such a huge part of such a special tradition.

So, maybe you can imagine our shock and dismay to discover that THE lobsters had been stolen from the water on Friday night. Holding tank and all. Gone. As a friend put it, “It’s like losing your uniform the night before the Big Game.” The night before Lobsterfest.

I get that maybe the thief wasn’t aware that those lobsters had been slowly gathered by a group of dedicated children…and their two amazing dads. Two dads who take the time to show those kids how to haul and set their gear. Two dads who, while they love lobstering with the kids, may actually prefer to cast a few rods, set an anchor at the beach, or play a round of golf on a few more occasions, rather than continuously tend to the traps. Or maybe they wouldn’t rather do those things, either way, that isn’t the point.

The point is, Stealing is wrong…and I’m pissed.

“The children must be crushed!” you may be thinking. Well, actually, the children don’t know. Luckily, those two amazing dads also had the wherewithal to not let the children know that someone had stolen their lobsters. They would have been beyond devastated. They would have been hurt. They probably would have been confused.

Those two amazing dads also didn’t want our guests to know that they had to scramble and buy lobsters in the eleventh hour. They certainly didn’t want any guests to run out and purchase lobsters themselves….not that any of those guests would have minded! Lucky also is that Cape Ann is the type of community where friends rally for each other. Lucky also is that, having lived here forever, those two amazing dads have people who were happy to help them and that getting enough lobsters to feed our friends was possible.

So, Lobsterfest was a giant success. Those little “lobsterkids” are none the wiser and, while we’re still mad, it would take more than a small time thief (Jack Ass) to ruin a wonderful summer evening with such amazing friends. Still, shame on them.

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We were on our good friends’ boat the other day with their 3 children, our two boys, and two additional cousins. As we watched all of the children laugh and chill on the bow while we made our way around the back shore of Gloucester, he said, “I love that these kids are all growing up so salty.”

Well, me too.

Today the boys asked if I would do a post in which they could talk about how they haul lobster traps. How do you say “no” to that! So, as they hauled some gear, I took a bunch of photos and they taught me what was up along the way.

This is what they had to say….

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We’re trying something new in the bait bags this season. I wonder how we’ll do? Daddy told him it was good luck to wear the bait bag while setting gear….as if he needed a reason to strap that sucker on!

Wing Nut.

He also happens to be turning 5 today! Birthday Boy in a Bait Bag…tune in.

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I was looking through some lobstering images on the web and came across these images of someone lobstering on a SUP. I was really surprised to see that these were taken off of Cape Ann, when I clicked through and read the post!

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What were you doing this morning at 3:45AM? I mean where would you rather be than down the stinky wharf rolling out the stinky barrels to the stinky trailer of herring at 3:45AM.

I’m thinking of starting up a little side business for adventure travelers that would want to come visit Gloucester from all over the country. I’ll charge them a nominal fee to help lug the barrels out and offload the bait trailer. It’s a whole experience thing. Once in a lifetime opportunity. Get up early and fill your nostils with that pungent aroma of salted herring. Ahhhhh, just take it all in……

Music- “Bad Dream” By The Twees

Here we are preparing for a trailer load of barrels of herring. The empty barrels need to leave the building to go back to the herring plant For the next load’s filling which you see in the second video-

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Lobster bands and banding tool. As the traps come up from the ocean floor, hopefully full of lobsters the lobsters that need to be gauged for size get tossed into the slots and then measured and the ones that are legal sized get banded and thrown into the holding tank til they get in to offload.

It’s manual focus, shutter speed 1/13, aperture 4.5, manual iso (400) and there are 335 frames included! I think I had the interval between shots at 5 seconds. Each image is a full-size jpeg, (which I don’t think was actually necessary, especially not for the web!) and I used final cut express software to edit the time lapse. (each frame is .03 seconds long I think). It was one of the first time lapses I have made with the intervalometer but I think it worked out pretty well… next time I will set the interval for a little shorter and take more frames so the final time lapse is a little longer! Oh and by the way, at the end I made the last few shots with longer and longer shutter speeds so that it would gradually fade to white. It wouldn’t have been that drastic at the very end if I hadn’t done that.

LOVE the one you did with the clouds! Gorgeous. It looks just like a time lapse but less jerky which is good for clouds. Very nice!

Here’s a link to a short little video I just made compiling some of the photos and short video clips from going out on the boat.

The mount has worked flawlessly so far and I can’t wait to make a ton more videos mounting the camera in creative places now that I don’t have to worry about the mount I use rusting up in salt water conditions.

I pair it with the refurbished $79 saltwaterproof Kodak Playsport Zx3 which can actually take video under water for the perfect solution for the dock and on our lobster boats. The Kodak Playsport also takes 720p 60 frames per second video which allows me to edit slow motion or speed up the video . That feature isn’t even an option on many $1,500 DSLR’s. Adam Bolonsky turned me on to that camera after I found out he shot our footage from Saturday’s Greasy Pole with it.
Here is some of the footage he captured with it-

Gloucester Webcam

The GloucesterCast Podcast

Free GMG Gloucester Sticker

As long as supplies last if any GMG folks want a bumper sticker but can't drop down the dock, just send a self addressed and stamped envelope longer then 7 and a half inches and I'll drop one in the mail for you.

Send the self addressed and stamped envelope to the dock at 95 East Main St Gloucester Ma 01930 care of Joey (put my name in big letters to make sure it gets to me)

Free GMG Gloucester Sticker

As long as supplies last if any GMG folks want a bumper sticker but can't drop down the dock, just send a self addressed and stamped envelope longer then 7 and a half inches and I'll drop one in the mail for you.

Send the self addressed and stamped envelope to the dock at 95 East Main St Gloucester Ma 01930 care of Joey (put my name in big letters to make sure it gets to me)